Steam Dev Says 99% of New Players Are Pirates as Sales Drop
The developer's data shows pirated versions now dominate new player counts, and he now doubts that piracy helps promote the official version.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
HeyNau, developer of the Steam Early Access game Burgie's Cozy Kitchen, reports that 99% of recent new players are using pirated versions. A PC pirated version spread rapidly, and official sales fell by nearly 40%. The developer partnered with a Chinese publisher to remove mobile pirated versions and is strengthening servers.
Burgie's Cozy Kitchen, a hamburger shop management idle game in Early Access on Steam, has seen a surge in unauthorized versions. Developer HeyNau reported on Reddit that a PC pirated version spread rapidly, and when checking the most recent 100 new players, 99% were pirate accounts, many traced to the Chinese site XDGAME.
The developer had already dealt with a mobile pirated version that drew over 600,000 players. He partnered with a Chinese publisher and removed several mobile pirated versions. The PC version appeared as official sales dropped by nearly 40% and active player numbers decreased. HeyNau released a mod that adds Chinese streaming platform integration as a PC-exclusive feature, which he thinks may have contributed to the rise in PC pirate players.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.